Yuyu's White Day
by The Yayacat
Summary: While Yuyu's witnessed the White Day ritual a number of times before in her lifetime, her first year away from her lifelong home feels... different. (Fluff)


' _Different.'_

The word was swimming about in Yuyu's mind like a fish in a bowl. It felt like, no matter where she looked, some fellow female student (and a male or two) was receiving candy from their male classmates. It had been like that all day, it seemed.

This wasn't her first White Day. She'd seen the ritual done a few times before, but this one felt different for some reason. "Different…" She muttered to herself.

" _It's just a meaningless, obsolete ritual."_ She'd always been told, " _Everyday will be worth celebrating, soon."_ And she'd always believed it.

But of course, that was before she and her siblings had moved to their new home. Everything they were told did not come to pass. It was all false. So, then, it stood to reason that that too was a falsehood. That it _wasn't_ just a meaningless, obsolete ritual.

"Not meaningless…" She noted aloud.

"White Day?" Her brother's voice brought her out of her deep thought.

Their eyes met, and she nodded. "Different."

"Different," Toto confirmed, adjusting the bag on his arm. He'd been thinking about it too, it seemed.

That's when Yuyu noticed the extra bulge in her brother's backpack. ' _Odd…'_ she thought. Their backpacks generally looked identical, being in the same class and all, and it wasn't a music day. "Backpack?"

For just a split second, Toto's eyes briefly widened, before returning to normal. He stared as he replied, "Secret."

"...Secret?" In all the time she'd spent with him, she'd never heard him even use the word. At least, not to her.

Toto nodded, adjusting his bag to conceal the extra lump. "Ready?"

Yuyu gathered up all of her items and slung her backpack over her good shoulder. "Ready."

XFlipFlapX

"Picnic?" Yuyu asked Cocona Kokomine, as they waited for everyone at the door between the hilly courtyard and the school.

It felt… strange not to have Toto there. He'd already gone to set up the picnic blanket, along with Yayaka.

Cocona nodded, smiling a bit. "Mmhm. Yayaka and I always gets a lot of candy when White Day comes around, especially Yayaka. So much that we'd often have a few little picnics during the week just so we could get through them all." She giggled lightly to herself, "But I imagine we'll be able to get through it quicker with everyone this year."

Yuyu didn't respond. She remembered Yayaka occasionally sneaking a large bag of candy around, but she never thought about asking her about it. She never thought it mattered much. But now that it _did_ matter, she couldn't help but wonder how someone could actually _get_ so much.

"Did you get any this year, Yuyu?"

"...None," she replied, finding it more difficult than usual to actually respond.

Cocona faltered, as if discouraged by her response. How strange. "Oh… Well, there's plenty to go around at our picnic."

It wasn't long before the two girls were joined by another two, bashing the doors open. "Hollo!" Papika and Nyunyu greeted in unison.

As Papika practically flew over to talk to Cocona, Nyunyu bounded over to Yuyu, a small bag of candy in her hand. "Look, big sis! I got candy!"

Yuyu tried to look past the candy and gave Nyunyu her usual look over. As it always seemed when she was with Papika, certain articles of clothing seemed to always find themselves absent on Nyunyu. Her yellow bow was disheveled, too. "Shoes, socks, and jacket."

Nyunyu shook her head, still smiling. "No. They feel bad. This is much better!"

' _Trouble.'_ She thought to herself, "Retrieve them."

"Nuh-uh!" Nyunyu suddenly pouted, her hands fists at her sides.

Yuyu felt something welling up inside of her. ' _Anger.'_ It too, seemed to come more frequent when Nyunyu spent time with Papika. "Retrieve them."

"Nuh-uh!"

That's when Cocona spoke up, "I'm sure it's alright this time, Yuyu. It's supposed to be nice like this all week." She turned to Nyunyu, "But you could get in trouble. So you'll get them tomorrow, right, Nyunyu?"

Nyunyu nodded with pep. "Of course!"

Yuyu remained unconvinced. What if they were stolen? Or the weather changed? Or she hurt herself? Or she forgot them? "Nyunyu. Retrieve them."

Nyunyu folded her arms, "Nuh-uh! I like Cocona more than you!"

Her expression remained the same, but a strange, piercing pain drove itself into Yuyu's stomach. The candy situation made her feel bad enough, but this only served to twist the knife in deeper. ' _Nyunyu's words… Hurt.'_

For the first time that day, Cocona frowned, "Nyunyu, that wasn't nice. You should apologize."

Nyunyu glowered at Yuyu. "But she isn't hurt! I didn't mean it!"

"Saying 'sorry' is always important," Papika chimed in. Then a ravenous grin came onto her face. "If you don't say 'sorry,' I'll give all your candy to Cocona instead!"

"Papika!"

Nyunyu looked back to Yuyu, then lowered her head. "I'm sorry, sis."

"Accepted." Yuyu replied, though the pain in her stomach had merely changed directions, moving up to her heart.

Cocona hesitated for a second, then said, "I'm sorry too, Yuyu. I should have asked if it was alright."

"Accepted." She turned to Nyunyu, "Retrieve them tomorrow."

Nyunyu nodded, smiling a bit.

A sudden growling noise interrupted the moment. "Coconaaaa," Papika moaned while holding her stomach, "Can we go now? I'm starviiiing!"

"Oh! Yes, we can go. Toto and Yayaka are probably getting tired of waiting for us."

"Hooray!" Papika and Nyunyu exclaimed in unison. "We're going to the picnic~! We're going to the picnic~!"

Nyunyu and Papika skipped off. Cocona sighed, perhaps fond or perhaps exasperated, and then began following.

Yuyu stared after them for a moment, then looked down. Her feet were like lead; everything felt so heavy.

Cocona stopped in her tracks a little ways into trailing them. Then she turned. "Is everything alright, Yuyu?"

She managed to raise her head, but no matter what she did, she could hardly look at Cocona. Then she walked, away from the door, past Cocona, for ten full paces before stopping. "Fine," she said. Then she continued towards the meeting place.

When the girls reached the small grassy hill, Toto and Yayaka were already on a large picnic blanket at the base. Its gray and white checks reminded her of amorphous missions. "'Bout time you guys got here. You know how hard it was keeping Toto's mitts off this stuff?" Yayaka said with a teasing smirk.

She had a half-eaten rice bar in her hand.

' _Wrong.'_

Toto didn't say anything; his gaze went directly to Yuyu as she sat down beside him. "All right?"

"Fine." Yuyu replied, though her gaze was still directed at the blanket.

Nyunyu came in on Toto's left, practically pouncing to the ground. "Look, Toto! Look at all the candy I got!"

Toto's gaze was still directed at Yuyu. It was clear to him she wasn't all right. "Yuyu."

She looked back his way. "Toto?"

She could sense him scooting closer, before unzipping his backpack. The sound reminded her of the secret from earlier. Curiosity getting the better of her, she tried to sneak a glance at whatever it was he was hiding, but his back was turned to her.

There was no reason to doubt it was related to her. That's what it usually meant when one prefaced an action with her name, after all.

He turned and presented her with a decently-sized bag of candy in his right hand, with a small pink name tag tied to the bag with a ribbon. Her eyes widened when she managed to read the tag.

"To: Yuyu."

She looked back up at Toto. He placed the small bag in her hand, and explained, "White Day."

She looked down at the bag. It had a good variety of individually-wrapped chocolates, lollipops, and even a small candy-bar visible through the clear plastic.

She couldn't look away from the gift, or her brother. She was feeling surprise; that's what it meant when something unexpected happened. "Thank you."

"Like it?"

Yuyu nodded, "Very much."

When she looked back up at Toto, there was a small smile on his face. "Glad."

Seeing his smile resulted in one of her own, before she carefully placed the bag of candy at her side.

Even as the others' energetic antics resumed, even as Nyunyu almost got stuck in a tree, Yuyu thought of little more than how _meaningful_ the day really was. It was nice.


End file.
